Sculptors of Monumental Narrative

Dickson Despommier tells us the story of how the insatiable millionaire John D. Rockefeller turned an eye to the untapped market of the American South and ended up eradicating the hookworm (and, in the process, a number of other awful afflictions) with an ingenious contraption. Then Pat Walters introduces us to Jasper Lawrence, a modern-day entrepreneur whose passion for hookworms stems from lifelong battles with allergies and asthma. But unlike Rockefeller, Jasper sees this parasite as friend, not foe.

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Comments [40]

Queta
from USA

From personal experience with an autoimmune disease(and lifelong sinus allergies) the hookworms from AIT work as advertised.It's ~$3k for 3 years of a guaranteed therapeutic population of around 100 or so hookworms.

The guy is wondering why his hookworm business is not booming?Well one of the reason is the price of a hookworm. I went on his website and he sells one hookworm for $3000. I mean come on. If I am very allergic and I need 5 of those little guys, that's a $15000 investment. That's a lot of money don't you think?Luckily I'm not allergic. I might have some hookworms in me :)

When i lived in mexico as a child I had hook worms all the time. Once in a while i would the stomach pains and so my mother would give me Strong teas, or raw garlic to flush them out. They occurred in kids mainly because kids would go out and play and didnt or could not get to the toilet fast enough. Personaly i never used shoes when i played outside since they where only for shcool and church. If i can remember right my stool some times had the worms but never really caused me chronich pain or discomfort. This being said I NEVER HAD ALLERGIES in mexico. WHen i came to the states i developed severy allergies 2 years later with asthma. Its been getting better but it makes me woudner if the worms where helping me when i had them.

Regardless of the who, when where and why of outhouses, they are an awful way to deal with human excrement and urine, even if they do decrease hookworm infections. Burying human "wastes" 6 feet deep is a tragic misunderstanding of how to deal with these and other organisms.

Your guest "experts" and listeners should learn about thermophilic composting as a way to kill pathogens and at the same time build healthy soil by capturing the nutrients so many millions just flush away out of sight, to become a treatment problem elsewhere.

I strongly recommend everyone interested read "The Humanure Handbook", by Joseph Jenkins, and learn all about handling parasites and capturing nutrients in human excreta -- human manure, or "humanure".

Not all composting schemes are good for the treatment of human "wastes". The key is a thermophilic process that reaches sustained temperatures sufficient to kill the pathogens, spores, and bacteria, while breaking down the organic matter to produce useful compost to help build soil quality. Many pharmaceuticals are also broken down, but keeping medicines out of the composting process is a better idea.

Have there been any new developments in the research on hook worms and its' beneficial effects primarily for people with MS? If you know of any other websites where this research may be found, would you be so kind as to provide me with such information. Thank you for your time and efforts and I do appreciate your "opening minds" to new, although bizarre, positive medical advances from such research. Hope to hear from you soon. Again, thank you in advance for your time and efforts.

One thing that got me excited on the broadcast, which turns out not to be true... I thought I heard "hookworms delivered to your door". This is not true, if one lives in the USA. They can only be delivered in a foreign country, according to Jasper's website, autoimmunetherapies.com. That's what stops me from buying to treat my MS.

I recently got RID of hookworms, which I'd apparently had for years, but it's much more complicated than just that. According to the comprehensive stool analysis tests I had done, I not only had hookworms, but some form of yeast/fungus (they were unable to grow a culture of it, but could tell what is was in general) had also been growing in my gut for a VERY long time. The evidence of the long period of infestation for both of these NOT HELPFUL invaders was the traumatized state of my HELPFUL gut flora, and the complete absence of Butyric Acid in my stool.

Butyric acid is what the cells lining the human colon use to regenerate. It is found in butter, cheese, and to a less extent in just plain milk. It is also obtained by the action of HELPFUL bacteria that reside in the gut, upon fiber. Since the yeast and hookworms had spent years fighting each other and everything else in my gut, I had barely any helpful bacteria left -- just two strains were present in near-normal amounts. Also, the sigA levels in my gut were so low, it was an indicator of my gut-based immune system having given up, completely, out of exhaustion. And yes, the reason I got these tests done was because of an increasing level of allergy, including asthma attacks, as well as migraines and chronic exhaustion.

The reason for the allergies was the the trauma to my gut flora from a yeast invasion, which was kept in check for a brief time and then exacerbated by the hookworms, which we postulate I had for about five years. In the end, however, the combination of the two were extremely detrimental to my health. This man who is sending his hookworms out into the world as a cure-all has incomplete knowledge. Instead of infesting themselves with hookworms, these people should get a comprehensive stool analysis from a good lab, rather than go blindly into uneducated gut warfare. I used Metametrix Lab, and can recommend the sensitivity and thoroughness of their testing and analysis.

i was surprised to find no additional information regarding hookworm therapy on radiolab's site, so i googled it. apparently hookworms have gotten the attention of the MS society, because they are funding clinical trial in england

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/uon-rso022912.php

the trials began february of 2012.

as usual, the europeans are way ahead of the U.S. when it comes to - well when it comes to just about anything. it will no doubt be years, if ever, before we see similar trials in this country. As someone with a particularly nasty flavor of autoimmune neuromuscular disease, this is disheartening. However, after looking at mr. lawrence's website, i think i am convinced enough of the safety and efficacy of hookworm (helminth) therapy, that i am going to try it. i had looked into this a while back (2 yrs?) and at that time he was prohibited from shipping hookworms into the US. i'm hoping that's no longer the case.

i encourage anyone else who's interested to visit mr. lawrence's blog

http://www.jasper-lawrence.com/

for those of us with otherwise untreatable and incurable illnesses of the autoimmune variety, this sounds as though it is definitely worth a try. It appears to be affordable, simple, and safe.

In your discussion on hookworm, you ignored the true hero. Dr. Charles Wardell Stiles, who spent decades trying to convince people about the problem, including being derided in the press as the discoverer of the "Germ of Laziness". I refer you to Vol. 3 of "Our Times", by Mark Sullivan, pages 290 to 332. The story is even more interesting than was protrayed on your show. I do enjoy your show very much and thank you for your efforts. Keith Forry

hygiene has clearly been beneficial in many ways, however, It is also the case that it is causing decease for the developed world. It is not just hookworm or other parasites we loose, but many other kinds of bacteria. These are essential for healthy immune system also. a healthy gut has 2.5 kilos of bacteria. these bacteria are a very important part of the human immune system. we loose them through hygiene, poor eating habits, alcohol, chemicals, antibiotics etc. I cured my life long asthma and allergies at 30 by adding probiotics such as kefir, miso, manuka honey, ferments to my diet. I'm much stronger and healthy generally also.

Fascinating story, back in a day and still in many part of the world people are getting sick by this parasite. But have you heard that in Hollywood they use hookworms to loose weight? what do you think of it?

There's actually quite a bit of research on hookworm by Peter J. Hotez. An important point he makes in his book "Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases" discusses the fact that hookworm spreads through any exposed skin, hands are also a very popular entrance for hookworm. And yes, outhouses have existed for a very LONG time, it was NOT invented in the South, nor even in the United States. He also says that Giardia has disappeared but it hasn't, it still exists here in the United States.

I believe some of the music in this segment is by Bela Fleck and an African thumb piano player from his return-to-Africa album Throw Down Your Heart. I highly recommend it. But I am not sure about the guitar piece.

I wonder what it is about hard-packed clay soils that does in hookworms. (I also wonder why Rockefeller didn't just give the wealthy farmers some clay to place around their favorite poo-trees.)

@Ted, I don't think the general (good) prosperity of the community had much to do with whether or not farmers wore shoes - according to Despommier, it was the rich farmers who were infected with hookworm.

Despommier is talking about how Rockefeller's scientists studied the lifecycle of the hookworm and discovered that hookworms crawl away from the place they were deposited. He then says:

"So how in the world could you deal with this problem when these worms can crawl four feet...Unless you do something radical, that's never been done before. They devised a scheme for burying the stool sample into the ground six feet deep.... We call that the outhouse. So the outhouse was invented by exploring the life cycle of hookworm."

So yes, it most certainly does imply that outhouses were invented in the early 20th century in response to the hookworm problem.

Amazing and intriguing information on hookworms... Good stuff! Youve gained another listener for sure. Good show and I agree in my amazement of closed minded people even in the light of stopping their suffering...rediculous..that the human race thinks of themselves as above being so... human. duh!

Being something of an autodidact in the social history of sanitary engineering, I would suggest that neither Ace or Amanda are quite on the mark. The use of outhouses goes back centuries in places where humans created permanent housing for themselves. Originally the motivation was likely more to avoid "fouling the nest" than any association of human waste with disease. The association of infected southerners in Rockefeller's studies with homes lacking privies wasn't so strong a predictor of hookworm infection as was the educational attainment and general prosperity of a community. Wearing shoes of any kind, especially for children, was a luxury in many rural parts of the pre 20th Century south. More significant for the rural southerner's probability of being infected with hookworm was not whether a person had an outhouse behind his/her cabin, but whether he or she regularly wore foot covering AND the prevalence of outhouse use in the larger community.

Historically, the other alternative to human waste disposal was to defecate in moving water (either a tidal zone or a river). We still use water today with the modern toilet to carry away our waste. With the increasing demands on a limited supply of potable water around most of the world, it is debatable how long we will be able to enjoy the luxury of flushing 1.6 gallons of potable water every time we defecate or urinate.

Well maintained, properly constructed outhouses and/or composting toilets may well have a comeback in many non-urban areas.

Hi there,This was a fantastic episode, but I'm troubled by a claim made in the outhouse segment. Despommier seems to strongly imply if not directly state that outhouses were invented in the early 20th century in response to these discoveries about hookworms. That just isn't true--outhouses have been around for centuries, and there are even two-story outhouses (!) that predate Rockefeller's interest. He may have found a scientific reason for digging them a certain depth, and he might be responsible for popularizing them in a specific region, but humanity figured out how to poop in a hole before the 1900s.